


The Hourglass Room

by Nostalgic_Kitty



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Police, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Dreams and Nightmares, LATE OOPS, M/M, Major character death - Freeform, Soulmates, X-men Treat Yo Self
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-27
Updated: 2015-04-27
Packaged: 2018-03-26 00:46:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3830896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nostalgic_Kitty/pseuds/Nostalgic_Kitty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erik repeatedly dreams of a blue-eyed man.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Hourglass Room

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Unforgotten](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unforgotten/gifts).



> Based on a tumblr prompt, done (LAST MINUTE) for Treat Yo Self. Hope you like it, Unf!

The blue-eyed man is there again, that night. Erik can see him from where he is crouched near the silver tree with its jeweled flowers and spidery, glowing veins. Erik can feel the metal in the tree, the way it runs deep and true, not merely a coating. The man is a ways away, standing in the pool of iridescent, luminous water that gathers between the rolling hills of shifting sand. He is naked, unashamed and calm, staring intently at the glass walls surrounding them. His pale, freckled skin drips with newness and light and his gaze is unwavering. Erik moves to stand, mind catching and sliding across the familiarity of the man again and again. Then, all at once, the man turns the force of that blue regard onto Erik. His body remains loose and relaxed, but the man’s eyes—they pierce straight through Erik’s with their intensity.

Only then does Erik notice that he too is naked. He moves to step forward, to reach out; but then the walls are shattering and the sand is swirling down down down from beneath their feet. Erik can feel the dream breaking, the pieces falling away. And just as the horizon line begins to tip, the man’s skin becomes papery and soft, red spreading outward from his chest, from his _heart_. And the man’s red lips form three words before all goes to darkness:

_“Goodbye, my friend.”_

*

Erik wakes with a start, the sky behind his blinds still dark and not yet touched by dawn. Rubbing palms over tired eyes and preemptively shutting off his 6:30 AM alarm, Erik swings his feet from under covers onto the ground. Then, he pauses, puzzled. The dream was different tonight.

*

The blue-eyed man is always there, in some capacity. Standing by Erik’s creaky hospital bed as his body gives way to AIDS, holding both his hands as they say their wedding vows, sharing a secret kiss with Erik in a royal garden. Laughing, crying, arguing, screaming, loving, hating, living, and always, always dying. And then the hourglass room with its translucent walls and its sandy floors—them both, naked, standing with no words between them—as the jeweled flowers of the tree float uselessly down from their perches. And then the dream ends and the others commence, countless others full of lives lived before, lives that only barely register as truth to Erik. Each ends differently, each with death: a remembered pain not heard but felt.

The dream with the hourglass room always ends the same, however. The blue-eyed man turns his gaze to Erik, his lips form the shape of some word, but no sound comes out.

Erik always feels like they shape his name, no matter how different the shape each time.

*

But the dream was _different_. An ominous different, a different that chills Erik’s marrow and sets his heart aflame. The dreams have come since Erik turned twenty, the blue-eyed man ever-present and consuming Erik’s waking hours. He is more than a recurrence. He is Erik’s life, now.

All these years of searching, he’s been looking for the man with the blue eyes. He’s been looking the only way he knows how, using his position as an NYPD detective to search covertly for the man.

In the shower, water sluicing down his body, Erik’s mind is elsewhere. He replays the moment over and over in his mind: the papery translucence, the spreading red, the words. For all the time they shared together, none has been so painful or so clear.

Ripped out of his thoughts by his ringing cell phone, Erik flips off the shower with his powers and throws a towel on, picking up the phone to answer.

“Detective Lehnsherr.”

Moira’s voice comes over the speaker, tinny and distorted:

“ _We’ve got a dead male, mid-thirties, wheelchair, gunshot wound to the chest. ID’d as one Charles Francis Xavier. He’s down by the mutant community center, come as quickly as you can.”_

“Alright, on it. Bye”

“ _Bye.”_

Erik sighs and gets dressed, still replaying the dream in his head.

*

Erik arrives on the scene, ducking under the yellow police tape in a practiced motion. He nods to Darwin as the fellow detective walks past. He can see a blue girl with a clear visible mutation crying and screaming nearby, asking to see her brother. Must be the sister, Erik thinks. He mentally logs her mutation and her reaction for later scrutinizing.

Moira is by the body, crouching next to the white sheet-draped figure and the overturned wheelchair.

“Detective Lehnsherr. I see you’ve seen the sister. Ready to get to work?” she says, standing up.

“You know I am,” Erik says sarcastically, smirking at Moira’s resulting eye roll. “So who’s the victim?”

“Telepath. He’s a local volunteer at the mutant center. Works with kids. Has a large trust fund, but refuses to use it. I think we’re looking at a murder for money or a possible hate crime—can’t be sure. Seems like he was a good guy. It’s a shame,” she says with a sigh. “Want to check out the body for me while I ask the sister some questions?”

“Sure thing, boss,” Erik says with a mock salute. Moira merely snorts and walks away to leave Erik to his job.

Moving to crouch next to the body himself, Erik’s mind flashes back to the dream. The body before him has a spreading red stain on the sheet, so akin to the man’s in the dream that Erik pauses, his heart going cold. It can’t be. It _can’t_.

Slowly and with trembling fingers, Erik removes the sheet. And there he is—the blue-eyed man, though his eyes are closed. Erik would recognize him anywhere.

Pulling back as if burned, Erik knows without a doubt the meaning of the dream, now. He feels the prick of tears in his eyes. He stands and stares straight ahead, unseeing. The approaching footsteps barely register.

“Lehnsherr, what’s the matter? You know the guy or something? Looks as if you’ve seen a ghost, man,” Cassidy says, pulling on a pair of blue sterile gloves as he moves to inspect the body. The man’s eyes are shut and Erik can’t bear the thought of being there when they are opened for inspection. The blue won’t be the same, Erik knows. Death changes so much.

“No I-I didn’t know him,” Erik manages to whisper. “But I wanted to.” He says the last part so quietly no one hears. He says it for himself and for the man with the blue eyes and the piercing gaze.


End file.
